Action groups

Here a recent effort was made to encourage the members of the last two meetings and especially those who are part of the different action items to provide follow-up information, data, and suggestions regarding the IBCN, the proposed Bank, the web site, another meeting, or anything else that they would consider  important.

International Bladder Cancer Bank
Currently the formation of the action groups of the International Bladder Cancer Bank is in process. Each action group will have a several project page which is updated regularly. Please check for updates of these web-pages. The groups will seperately invite investigators and institutions to join the different pilot projects which will also serve as a basis for a consensus recommendation for the members of the Bank for the future.

International Study Initiative on Bladder Cancer (ISBC)
The collection of 3421 data sets from 25 different contributing centers is completed including the phase of the "source data verification". The transformed datasets are currently evaluated and a first "final" analysis will be available within the next months.

Publications in 2000

H.Barton Grossman, The First and Second International Workshops on Diagnostic and Prognostic Markers in Bladder Cancer, Urologic Oncology 5 (5) (2000) pp. 183-184.

J.Alfred Witjes, Lambertus A.L.M. Kiemeney, Leon L. Wheeless, H.Barton Grossman, The value of histopathological prognostic factors in superficial bladder cancer. Do we need more?, Urologic Oncology 5 (5) (2000) pp. 185-190.

Catherine A. Reznikoff, Somdatta Sarkar, Knut P. Jülicher, Melissa S. Burger, Jairaj A. Puthenveettil, David F. Jarrard, Michael A. Newton, Genetic alterations and biological pathways in human bladder cancer pathogenesis, Urologic Oncology 5 (5) (2000) pp. 191-203.

Bernd J. Schmitz-Dräger, Peter J. Goebell, Manfred Heydthausen, International Study Initiative on Bladder Cancer (ISBC), p53 immunohistochemistry in bladder cancer. Combined analysis: a way to go?, Urologic Oncology 5 (5) (2000) pp. 204-210.

David Faraggi, Andrew Kramar, Methodological issues associated with tumor marker development. Biostatistical aspects, Urologic Oncology 5 (5) (2000) pp. 211-213.

Sheila E. Taube, Glen Paul Freiberg, Regulatory issues related to marker development, Urologic Oncology 5 (5) (2000) pp. 214-216.

Next Meeting

Although there is currently no meeting planned, we feel that there is a very strong need for discussion within a larger group, including pathologists, statisticians as well as researchers and clinicians, who contribut to the understanding of bladder cancer. This could be implemented among other projects in a third meeting in Barcelona in Spring 2001 (the interest for such a meeting is currently under evaluation).

Yours sincerely,
 

H. Barton Grossman Department of Surgery  University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center  1515 Holcombe Blvd, Box 110  Houston, TX 77030, USA   hbgrossman@notes.mdacc.tmc.edu

Bernd J. Schmitz-Dräger Department of Urology EuromedClinic Europa-Allee 1 D-90763 Fürth, Germany  bsd@euromed.de